Empathy in health professions education and patient care

Text includes: Descriptions and conceptualization; Human connection in health and illness; An evolutionary perspective, sociophysiology and heritability; Psychodynamics and development; Measurement of empathy in the general population; A definition and key features of empathy in patient care; The Jefferson scale of empathy; The interpersonal dynamics in clinician-patient relationships; Empathy as related to personal qualities, career choice, acquisition of knowledge and clinical competence; Empathy and gender: are men and women complementary or opposite sexes; Empathy and patient outcomes; Erosion and enhancement of empathy; In search of neurological underpinnings of empathy; Parting thoughts: a systematic paradigm of empathy in patient care and future directions.

Includes appendices: Appendix A: Annotated bibliography on the Jefferson scale of empathy; Appendix B: Jefferson scale of empathy, health professions version (JSE-HP-version); Appendix C: Jefferson scale of empathy, medical student version (JSE S-version); Appendix D: Jefferson scale of empathy, health professions student version (JSE HPS-version); Appendix E: Jefferson scale of patient perceptions of physician empathy (JSPPPE)

In this thorough revision, updating, and expansion of his great 2007 book, Empathy in Patient Care, Professor Hojat offers all of us in healthcare education an uplifting magnum opus that is sure to greatly enhance how we conceptualize, measure, and teach the central professional virtue of empathy. This book provides students and professionals across healthcare with the most scientifically rigorous, conceptually vivid, and comprehensive statement ever produced proving once and for all what we all know intuitively - empathy is healing both for those who receive it and for those who give it.